RAW (March 16th, 2020): If You Thought This Was Awkward, Wait Until Mania

So I broke my WWE moratorium by watching this three-hour RAW from an empty Performance Center... which will end up being the new site of Wrestlemania 36.

You know... I'm not surprised in the slightest that this is what they would do. Really, they could either try and run an empty stadium, they could postpone the show to the summer, or they could outright cancel. Now, honestly, if I were in that position, I would have held the show off, but certainly, one has to consider the logistics of such a move. As such, I don't know whether I should applaud WWE for this decision or condemn them... but I will say this much; all of a sudden, Wrestlemania had piqued my curiosity. Not for anything on the card, but for the annual tradition that has taken place in packed stadiums with tens of thousands of fans cheering loudly to emanate from an empty Performance Center with no fans. It'll certainly be unique, if nothing else.

And that brings me to RAW... a show that featured mostly talking segments as well as a replay of this year's men's Rumble match, which was greatly appreciated because I needed to see the whole match. (And I might get around to watching it when I get some downtime in a couple days.) From what they showed (due to commercial breaks), looks to be a pretty fun 1st half with Brock tossing dudes before Drew comes along and knocks him out of the match.

Aside from that, there's only one match on the show, which saw Rey Mysterio beat Andrade in a short match while Asuka rambled on commentary. The rest of the show is a bunch of talking bits. Edge cuts a promo on Randy Orton and challenges him to a Last Man Standing match, Becky Lynch cuts a promo on Shayna Baszler to further that feud, AJ Styles and Undertaker (with doorag) has a contract signing that ends badly, and Steve Austin cutting an empty arena promo for the first time since his Sportatorium days.

This is a very weird show. Mostly promos, one short match, and the rest of the show was bloated with a replay of a Rumble match that took up the majority of the show... I missed out on Smackdown, but I heard that was a fun show with HHH and Cole doing commentary and making a mockery of the whole thing. I regret missing Smackdown, because then I wouldn't have had to watch RAW, which was largely boring.

Yes, they did the best they could given the circumstances, but RAW hasn't been a good show before the world went to shit and if this is what we have to look forward to for the foreseeable future, then maybe I should stick with Smackdown... or AEW, which is also doing empty arena shows... because, sure, why not?